Ḥadd

Prescribed punishment — the fixed penalties ordained in Islamic law for specific grave violations including theft, slander, and certain forms of illicit intimacy. The hadd punishments are among the defining markers al-Dhahabi uses to classify a sin as major: if the Lawgiver prescribed a fixed worldly penalty for it, this signals its exceptional gravity. Al-Dhahabi notes that the hadd punishments serve multiple functions simultaneously — deterrence, purification of the one who committed the sin if applied, and the protection of the community from the spread of the violation. Their severity reflects the severity of what they protect: life, honour, family, intellect, and property.

As understood in the classical tradition of Imam al-Dhahabī and the scholars of his school.